Technology's Biggest Myths

Illustration by Keith Negley

Editor's note:This story earlier had an incorrect designation for the Blue Jeans Cable product mentioned in the HDMI cable section. That has now been corrected.

As it turns out, Windows Vista really wasn't all that slow; and no, your PC probably won't fry if you open it up without wearing a wrist strap. Thanks in large part to the Internet, the tech world is teeming with lies, half-truths, and misinformation. We've dug up some of the Web's most notorious nuggets of conventional wisdom to see which hold up to scrutiny and which are merely urban legends.

Of course, there's often a grain of truth in even the most fanciful myth. That's why we provide a handy-dandy set of numbered warning signs to indicate how accurate each of these myths is, with 1 being True and 4 being Outrageous--a complete fabrication. After all, they say numbers never lie.

The Claim: Vista Is Slower Than Windows 7

When Windows Vista came out, it soon acquired a reputation for being slow and a resource hog. Once Windows 7 arrived, people were quick to tout it as the speedy, slim operating system that Vista should have been.

We conducted performance tests on a handful of laptops and desktops using both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista and Windows 7, shortly after the latter OS was released. While results varied across configurations, a few trends stood out. Windows 7 raised WorldBench 6 scores from 1.25 percent to almost 10 percent (but most often in the vicinity of 2 to 3 percent); it also resulted in much faster disk operations (in Windows 7 our Nero disc-burning software tests ran twice as fast on an IdeaPad laptop, and 2.5 times as fast on a Gateway laptop), and in slightly longer battery life (the IdeaPad lasted only an extra minute; the Gateway got an extra 15 minutes).

While Windows 7 did seem to speed things up somewhat, a few tests actually showed some slowdown. Applications launched more slowly across the board (the most dramatic change was a 2.7-second Photoshop CS4 launch in Vista turning into a 9.6-second launch in Windows 7), and the Gateway laptop saw a slight increase in startup time (39.6 seconds in Vista; 43.6 seconds in Windows 7).

As it turns out, the "snappy" feeling Windows 7 engenders has to do with Registry tweaks and minor changes to the window manager that make the OS feel more responsive, even though it isn't that different.

The verdict: Windows 7 is faster, but not by as much as you may think.

The Claim: All Smartphones Suffer Signal Loss From a 'Grip of Death'

When early iPhone 4 adopters discovered that touching a certain spot on the exposed antenna could cause the phone to lose signal strength, reduce data speeds, and even drop calls, Apple in­­sisted that all smartphones suffered from a similar defect.

While every phone we tested was affected by a "grip of death," none went so far as to drop calls, as the iPhone 4 did. Bottom line: If you don't have an iPhone 4, you don't need to worry too much about this antenna issue.

The Claim: The Desktop PC Is Dying

Sure, laptops are cheaper and more powerful than ever, and can meet all your basic computing needs. But saying that the desktop is on its deathbed is like saying that, since all most people need is a Geo Metro, the pickup truck is obsolete. Power users who need desktop-caliber performance in a laptop must pay a significant premium, and if they want a Blu-ray drive, a better GPU, or a 3D display, they must buy a new model. Also, people who like to tinker with their PCs have fewer options with laptops than they do with desktops.

Meanwhile, the desktop PC market is evolving to meet users' demands. People who want a larger display but don't like the looks of a tower can buy an all-in-one system. Others want a computer that fits nicely next to their 50-inch HDTV--a home theater PC. And students, who typically benefit most from a laptop, can buy both a solid all-in-one PC for gaming and movies (ahem--"multimedia projects") and a cheap, lightweight netbook for taking notes in class for the same price as a single moderately powerful laptop (which would be more expensive to replace if it were broken, lost, or stolen).

The Claim: High-Priced HDMI Cables Make Your HDTV Look Better

From left: Monster HD1000, $150; Monoprice 28AWG, $3.04; AudioQuest Forest, $60; Blue Jeans Cable Tartan 28AWG HDMI, $3.60.When you plunk down $1200 (or more) for a new HDTV and $300 for a Blu-ray player, it can be easy for a salesperson to guilt you into tacking a $150 HDMI cable onto your purchase--after all, your brand-new gear needs a good cable to get the image quality you're paying for, right? If you're lucky, you'll have the alternative of buying the "cheap" store-brand cable, at a cost of only $30 and a disapproving look from the cashier. Well, feel free to take that $150 and spend it on popcorn for the movies you'll be watching--your HDTV won't care which HDMI cable you use.

High-quality cables have been a staple of the audio/video business for decades now, and for good reason: As an analog audio or video signal travels from one device to another, it's susceptible to interference and disruption, meaning that the image data as it leaves your DVD player isn't 100 percent identical to the image that shows up on your TV, because certain parts of the signal can get lost on the way there.

However, digital audio/video standards like DisplayPort, DVI, and HDMI don't have this problem because the data be­­ing transmitted over the cable isn't as sensitive as an analog signal; it consists entirely of ones and zeros, and a tremendous drop in signal voltage has to occur before a one starts to look like a zero at the receiving end. When this does happen, you'll usually see some kind of white static "sparklies" on your TV, as the set attempts to fill in the blanks itself, but this typically happens only over very long HDMI runs (8 meters and up). For shorter cables, the cable quality shouldn't matter.

That explanation rarely succeeds in silencing the home-theater enthusiasts (and home-theater salespeople) who swear that they see a difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff, so we decided to check them out ourselves to see whether cost made a difference. We tested two pricey HDMI cables--the Monster HD1000 ($150) and the AudioQuest Forest ($60)--against a couple of bargain-basement cables from Blue Jeans Cable (the Tartan 28AWG HDMI cable, $3.60) and Monoprice (the 28AWG, $3.04).

After testing different kinds of high-def video clips (including clips of football broadcasts and selections from The Dark Knight on Blu-ray), we ended up with all four cables in a dead heat: Blue Jeans Cable, Monoprice, and Monster all saw an average rating of 3.5 out of 5, with AudioQuest trailing ever so slightly at 3.4--close enough to practically be a rounding error. So save your money and stick to the cheaper cables unless you need the cables to cover a long distance.

The Claim: LCDs Are Better Than Plasma Screens for HDTV Sets

Don't believe the hype: Your local HDTV salespeople may be trying to upsell you on a spiffy new LCD, but there are plenty of reasons to pick a plasma instead. Plasmas still handle darker scenes better, have a wider range of viewing angles, and are generally cheaper than LCDs (especially at larger sizes). Panasonic and Samsung continue to manufacture plenty of plasma sets (including a line of home 3D TVs and a gigantic, superexpensive 152-inch 3D display). You can read more about plasma vs. LCD displays.

LCDs are catching up in a few respects, however. LCD sets with LED backlighting and higher refresh rates can compensate for some of the traditional problems of LCDs, and they suck up significantly less power than plasma sets do, so the higher price may be offset over time in your electricity bill.

Despite the remaining advantages of plasma, it's worth noting that some manufacturers are dropping out of the plasma display market (Pioneer, most notably, and Vizio), and California plans to ban power-hungry TVs--so the writing is undeniably on the wall: Plasma isn't dead yet, but it may be finished in a few years.

The Claim: More Bars on Your Cell Phone Means Better Service

The signal bars on your cell phone display indicate the strength of your cellular signal to the nearest tower. But if you're connected to a tower that lots of other people are connected to, you could have a strong signal and still have poor service, since everyone's calls are competing for scarce network resources. Once your information arrives at the cellular tower from your phone, it has to travel through your service provider's backhaul network (which connects the tower to the Internet). And if your provider's network isn't up to snuff, you could have a flawless connection to an empty cell tower, and yet still encounter poor speeds and dropped calls.

When we tested 3G service in 2009, we found that signal bars were poor indicators of service quality in 12 of the 13 cities in which we tested. In San Francisco, for one, signal bars correlated with service quality in only 13 percent of test results. Additionally, if you use an iPhone, you might just be seeing inaccurate readings. Apple recently announced (in connection with the iPhone 4 antenna issue) that the formula it had been using in all iPhones to display signal strength was "totally wrong" and often reported the signal as two bars higher than it should have. Oops.

The Claim: Over Time, Inkjet Printers Are Much More Expensive Than Laser Printers

To figure out how much a printer's consumables will cost you over time, you take the price of the ink or toner cartridge and divide by the estimated page yield per cartridge, for your cost per page. Traditionally, laser printers have had a higher initial purchase price, which was balanced by their lower cost per page versus inkjet printers.

However, as inkjet printer manufacturers began to release more efficient models (ones with separate ink tanks for each color, or higher-yield cartridge options), the cost-per-page gap has closed dramatically. Businesses needing cheap, fast printers, for example, could do well with either the Epson B-510DN inkjet (1.3 cents per black text page, 14.7 pages per minute, $600 retail price), or one of the more economical laser printer models, such as the Oki C610dtn (1.1 cents per black text page, 19.1 pages per minute, $700 retail price). Home users and students have fewer options--paying less for the printer means paying more for the ink. To its credit, the Canon Pixma iP4700 (2.7 cents per black text page, 7.4 pages per minute, $100 retail) has reasonably priced inks.

Keep in mind that the inkjet printers you see going cheap with big mail-in rebates or included with laptop purchases generally aren't the type that can hang with a laser printer in speed and costs. Instead, you'll end up paying more in the long run via expensive, low-yield ink cartridges--to the point where it can even be cheaper to buy a new printer than to refill the ink in your old one.